We know we were first introduced to the China program years ago through friends of ours who attended an informational meeting on adopting from China. At the time, the process to adopt from China was fast, less than one year from start to finish for a non-special needs baby girl under the age of one year. Fast. We tucked away that knowledge and went about our daily lives.
We did not consider domestic. We believe in domestic adoption and certainly support domestic adoption, but it was not to be for our family. I have spent numerous hours volunteering for child advocacy groups and childrens shelters. I spent a year working with a little girl at a local childrens home. Some say, "Why go to another country to adopt when there are children here waiting?" To fully grasp why one would choose to go to another country over the United States is just too much to get into - there are many factors and when discussing this topic, one has to be willing to accept that adopting domestically is not for every family. In our world of adoption, we hear a lot of families state that they chose to adopt from a specific country because that is where their heart was. I find this, for our family, to be true. China just felt right. It was easy to picture. I saw this perfect little olive-skinned, dark brown eyed, pigtail baring little girl in my dreams. I wanted the dream. And Ryan agreed.
3 comments:
We went to an information night about all programs. I wanted to go to Ukraine for two little boys and avoid the "obvious" adoption, as it is called (racial differences) but we decided to check out the domestic program first. One meeting for prospective parents at the State offices and we RAN back to the international coordinator (where we ran into two other families that had been considering domestic at that same meeting). We continued toward Ukraine and it was actually my husband who said, what about China? Some of that was selfish-he had no interest at all in traveling overseas-and some of that was practical-he is self-employed and it would be devastating for him to be away for 3-4 weeks plus we had a child at home who couldn't miss that much school. I think that when you start talking to people who have adopted, their stories are often like this-not a straight path but one that meanders for a while first.
Ruby
Well said! You and Ryan have a beautiful family! Take care!
Mollie B.
Why China? Because that's where my daughters were!
Post a Comment